Sky-Watcher Star Adventurer Pro + 72ED refractor?

[astrochumak]

Hello,
the title pretty much says it all 😁. I'm looking for a beginner's astrophotography setup and I wonder if it'll be okay to use Star Adventurer with some 72ED refractor (let it be Evostar 72ED, for example) and a DSLR. Some say the mount won't be feasible, others say that with proper and thorough balancing it should be fine. Maybe somebody out there have already used these both together?

Clear skies

[Mark1489]

Hi

I think you may be pushing the star adventurer to the limit/beyond with that scope - how much will depend on your pixel scale so dependant on the pixel size of your dslr. It will also depend on your tolerance for round stars; you might get short exposures which look fine but no doubt you’ll want longer exposures in time and you may end up frustrated! Another thing to take account is the periodic error of each particular star adventurer - they seem to vary. It’s a good star tracker for shorter focal lengths though! 
 

Mark

[astrochumak]

7 minutes ago, Mark1489 said:

I think you may be pushing the star adventurer to the limit/beyond with that scope

Hi Mark, 
thanks for your reply! Can you recommend any relatively cheap and portable mount/tracker that can cope with 72ED? 

Edited March 22, 2021 by astrochumak

[scotty38]

I know Peter Zelinka and Trevor Jones (Astrobackyard) have cracking results with this type of mount and scopes like the RedCat. Might be worth looking at some of their videos as there are loads.

Any longish exposures are probably going to need guiding though but look at the videos as they do stuff before moving on to guiding

Edited March 22, 2021 by scotty38

[Space Oddities]

I agree with Mark. Also at 420mm (or ~360mm with the 0.85x reducer), it won't be easy to correctly frame the target, given that it's a manual mount. Some bright targets like Orion and M31 are rather easy to frame, but if you want to photograph something dimmer and/or smaller, you need to be ready to waste some time doing trial and error framing: aim, take a picture, adjust the aim, take a picture... Nostalgic astronomers will probably say it's a good thing, that's how you learn the sky and how to "star hop". In my opinion, it's just a waste of imaging time and a source of frustration. 

I was using a SkyGuider Pro until I "upgraded" to a Sky-Watcher AZ-GTi, which is basically like the Star Adventurer but with Go-To capability. It really changed my astro-life! No more time wasted centering the target, go-to takes care of that (and plate solving if you have a computer around). It has the same payload as the SA, 5kg, and roughly the same size/weight, so really as portable.

On the downside, it's also harder to polar align than the SA, since it has no polar scope, but there are other ways to do it, either by adding a polar scope or using a software to do it. I use my guide or main camera to do that, and it's even more precise than with a polar scope.

The AZ-GTi is not as "plug and play" as a Star Adventurer, and it requires some extra bits and pieces (polar wedge, counter-weight...) to make it work in equatorial mode, but that's the price for having a go-to mount that is still very portable   And you can also use it for visual use in Alt-Az mode, or with a cheap Maksutov telescope for planetary observing/imaging, which the Star Adventurer cannot do  So in my eyes, for the same price, you get 2x more value out of it.

I would consider the Star Adventurer only if you have a shorter focal length (~200mm max) and need a plug-and-play solution. It does work really well with a Samyang 135mm f/2 for instance, and with some training you can get your framing right rather quickly. But at ~400mm, IMO you're shooting yourself in the foot.

Edited March 22, 2021 by Space Oddities

[Mark1489]

3 hours ago, astrochumak said:

Hi Mark, 
thanks for your reply! Can you recommend any relatively cheap and portable mount/tracker that can cope with 72ED? 

Hi, As mentioned above I think the AZ-GTi may be a better option, another may be the Fornax light track II as that mount has a very low level of periodic error but framing may be more difficult. A lot of people go with the Heq5 pro it seems, that’s leaving trackers behind though and moving onto full eq mount territory.

Autoguiding would give you better results definitely on both the star adventurer or Az-GTi, I’d probably go with the latter as you can guide in both axis and have go-to capabilities.

Mark 

Edited March 22, 2021 by Mark1489

[Chefgage]

7 hours ago, astrochumak said:

Hello,
the title pretty much says it all 😁. I'm looking for a beginner's astrophotography setup and I wonder if it'll be okay to use Star Adventurer with some 72ED refractor (let it be Evostar 72ED, for example) and a DSLR. Some say the mount won't be feasible, others say that with proper and thorough balancing it should be fine. Maybe somebody out there have already used these both together?

Clear skies

I indeed use a skywatcher evostar 72ed and star adventurer. It works very well for me (check out the dedicated star adventurer thread in the beginner's imaging section). What has been said about framing being difficult, well I don't see it as a big problem really even with it being a manual mount. I use a field flattener without reducer so the scope stays at 420mm focal length.

Edited March 22, 2021 by Chefgage

[astrochumak]

6 hours ago, Chefgage said:

I indeed use a skywatcher evostar 72ed and star adventurer. It works very well for me (check out the dedicated star adventurer thread in the beginner's imaging section). What has been said about framing being difficult, well I don't see it as a big problem really even with it being a manual mount. I use a field flattener without reducer so the scope stays at 420mm focal length.

That's awesome, thanks for sharing:)

By the way, if somebody out there was taking any DS photos with 72ED from Bortle 6-8 areas, can you please share them there? 

[Chefgage]

9 hours ago, astrochumak said:

That's awesome, thanks for sharing:)

By the way, if somebody out there was taking any DS photos with 72ED from Bortle 6-8 areas, can you please share them there? 

I am in a bottle 8 ish sky. This was taken using the 72ed on a star adventurer. Scroll to the end of th post to see the actual  image.

 

[astrochumak]

16 minutes ago, Chefgage said:

I am in a bottle 8 ish sky. This was taken using the 72ed on a star adventurer. Scroll to the end of th post to see the actual  image.

 

Beautiful! Thanks a lot!